2024: The Year in Pictures
Our Favorite Photos Captured Steady Progress, an Explosive Victory … and an Old (Green) Friend’s Visit
Terps fans storm the field at SECU Stadium on Oct. 19 after the football team’s dramatic 29-28 Homecoming Game victory over USC in the debut meeting between the teams.
Photo by Riley N. Sims
A surprise greeted Terps arriving at the University of Maryland this fall: The bulk of Purple Line construction in the heart of campus had wrapped up, and the light-rail line’s path here had become clear.
Momentum was a theme for the university in 2024—and not just in terms of the long-awaited transit project that will link Montgomery and Prince George’s counties with five stops on or near UMD.
The university continued its climb in U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of Best Colleges, placing No. 44 among national universities—its best-ever showing, and a 20-position jump since 2020. UMD also rose two spots to No. 17 among public schools.
In other closely watched rankings, UMD hopped two spaces, to No. 12, in Forbes’ America’s Top Colleges, and was named to its list of America’s “New Public Ivies;” the university also marked 10 years as a Top-10 school for innovation and entrepreneurship by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.
UMD’s expanding investments in research helped bump it up a spot to No. 18 among all U.S. institutions in the National Science Foundation’s latest Higher Education Research and Development survey. The university’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security landed the largest contract in UMD history—worth up to $500 million—from the Department of Defense. UMD ramped up its focus on collaborative research and experiential learning related to AI with the launch of the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM). And the new Chemistry Building opened to support research and discovery in both chemistry and biochemistry.
Other additions to the campus landscape included the dedication of the Do Good Rings outside Thurgood Marshall Hall, a visual pronouncement of UMD’s commitment, and the unveiling of the “David’s Dream” sculpture outside the David Driskell Center, honoring the legacy of the late Distinguished University Professor emeritus and groundbreaking artist.
The state completed a 1.5-mile section of its major Baltimore Avenue upgrade, and Greater College Park continued to add new retail, dining and housing options including the Union on Knox and Atworth high-rise apartment complexes, the Greene Turtle and Rally House.
Remarkable alums returned to campus, literally, as Maryland revived its Homecoming grand marshal program and welcomed back two 2024 Summer Olympics gold medal winners: triple jumper Thea LaFond-Gadson ’15 and basketball player Alyssa Thomas ’14. Also this year, NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps M.S. '94, Ph.D. '00 shared her out-of-this-world experience on the International Space Station with Terps.
See other memorable moments of 2024 in the images below, among the best from the Office of Marketing and Communications’ photography staff:
Astronaut Jeanette Epps M.S. ’94, Ph.D. ’00 spoke to a Maryland Today interviewer soon after her arrival aboard the International Space Station in March, beginning an approximately seven-month assignment as a flight engineer. In November, just a week after returning from orbit, she appeared at UMD for the Alumni Association's annual Celebration of Terps: Featuring the Maryland Awards, where she received the President’s Award. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Faculty, staff and students donned protective shades and fanned out across campus on April 8 to watch a partial eclipse that eerily dimmed the lights across the country (and turned them out entirely in the path of totality.) Raquel Bowman '26, left, and Hadiya Grier '26 watched from the Engineering Fields, while thousands more viewed the eclipse from McKeldin Mall. (Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle)
The University of Maryland in April dedicated its state-of-the-art Chemistry Building to catalyze the work of UMD scientists who are pushing the boundaries of their fields. "This new facility is a landmark investment in our faculty, staff, students and the future of chemistry and biochemistry at our flagship institution," said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. "I am optimistic for the world-changing collaborations that will begin in these labs and lead to new knowledge and discoveries.” (Photo by Mark Sherwood)
Hal Daumé III, director of the new Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute (AIM), talks about its mission to conduct research, offer innovative and experiential learning opportunities for students and focus on ethical AI technology to advance the public good at a launch event in May at at Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center. (Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle)
MPower Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Donald Milton poses with the Gesundheit II machine he developed to capture exhaled breath and extract viruses. He is using it in a groundbreaking $20 million research project taking place with participants staying at a historic hotel in Baltimore. If he succeeds, the interdisciplinary five-year study could fundamentally alter how health authorities and the public fight respiratory infections. (Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle)
Madison Alvarez '24 takes a video of the dance floor at the prom. She was one of hundreds of students who turned out in May for a high school tradition that the Class of 2024’s graduating seniors missed as high schoolers in 2020 because of the pandemic. (Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle)
During a tour of campus on the first day of classes in August, UMD President Darryll J. Pines hands out turtle pins to members of Worldwide Terps, a group within Maryland Athletics that supports dozens of international student-athletes, in the Student Involvement Suite at the Stamp. (Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle)
Jacob Barsam '26, a member of the Gymkana troupe, soars high above McKeldin Mall as thousands of students learn about (and accept swag from) student clubs and groups tabling at the First Look Fair in September. (Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle)
During a September visit to campus, Kermit drops in on the Jim Henson ’60 statue outside Stamp Student Union and meets his twin. Along with his puppeteer, Matt Vogel, Kermit chatted with College of Arts and Humanities Dean Stephanie Shonekan later that day before an audience at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. (Photo by Riley N. Sims)
While major construction on the state’s light-rail Purple Line is largely complete in the heart of campus, intensive work continues in peripheral areas. Its 16-mile route will extend from New Carrollton in Prince George’s County to Bethesda in Montgomery County and include five stations on or near campus, expanding access to the surrounding region after its scheduled opening in winter 2027. (Photo by John T. Consoli)
Bobby Alban ’25, an aerospace engineering major and technical coordinator for Terrapin Works, removes 3D-printed peace medals from the SLM 125 metal printer in the Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building in November. The replicas of the medals given to American Indian tribes by English colonists will serve as accessible educational tools for youths from the Piscataway Tribe, upon whose ancestral lands UMD was built. (Photo by John T. Consoli)
Sybil ((left) and Rosie Seabrook (right) flank Testudo as they lead attendees of a ribbon-cutting ceremony down Baltimore Avenue in November in celebration of the completion of a $56.9 million project to upgrade the street and boost safety along a 1.5-mile route that passes through UMD and downtown College Park. (Photo by Riley N. Sims)
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